Milk Fed

By: Melissa Broder

Narrated by: Melissa Broder

Length: 6 hrs and 48 mins

Publisher's summary

Bloomsbury presents Milk Fed by Melissa Broder, read by Melissa Broder.

A scathingly funny, wildly erotic and fiercely imaginative story about food, sex and God from the Women's Prize longlisted author of The Pisces 

A Stylist, Independent, The Week and Red Highlight for 2021

Rachel is 24, a lapsed Jew who has made calorie restriction her religion. By day, she maintains an illusion of control by way of obsessive food rituals. At night, she pedals nowhere on the elliptical machine. 

Then Rachel meets Miriam, a young Orthodox-Jewish woman intent upon feeding her. Rachel is suddenly and powerfully entranced by Miriam - by her sundaes and her body, her faith and her family - and as the two grow closer, Rachel embarks on a journey marked by mirrors, mysticism, mothers, milk and honey.

Pairing superlative emotional insight with unabashed vivid fantasy, Melissa Broder tells a tale of appetites: of physical hunger, of sexual desire, of spiritual longing. Milk Fed is a tender and riotously funny meditation on love, certitude and the question of what we are all being fed, from one of our major writers on the psyche - both sacred and profane.

©2021 Melissa Broder (P)2021 Simon & Schuster Inc.

Critic reviews

"A revelation. Melissa Broder has produced one of the strangest and sexiest novels of the new year. Exhilarating." (Entertainment Weekly)

"A luscious, heartbreaking story of self-discovery through the relentless pursuit of desire. I couldn’t get enough of this devastating and extremely sexy book." (Carmen Maria Machado, author of Her Body and Other Parties)

"Deeply hilarious and embarrassingly relatable." (Samantha Irby, author of Wow, No Thank You) 

Disappointingly self indulgent

Bought this book as had read a review on the Financial Times of good books to read for the summer. Was disappointed by both the narrator as well as the story line which was pretty much a waste of 18 hours of my life listening to another Millenial with a weight issue and little else.

Boring and utterly cringe

This book was the pick of my book group and based on the positive reviews I'd seen I was expecting it to be good.
Unfortunately I discovered a book that was both boring and contained some of the most cringely written erotica I had ever read. By 12 chapters in I honestly could have died happily having never heard someone monologue the nutritional information of a food, ever again. The sex scenes were supposed to be erotic and convey the issues the narrator had with mother figures but instead was just awkward and cringey to listen to. Female genitals described as 'soft and creamy like a cool basement' was the pinnacle. What does that even mean?!!! It wasn't helped by the droning, monotonous voice of the author-narrator - her voice lacked any kind of emotion or inflection most of the time and was not an engaging listen.
I persevered with the book for book group but skipped past a lot as I got towards the end. I can honestly say it's (for me) one of the most boring and off-putting books I've ever read and I wouldn't recommend it.

Food and Sex and religion.

Intriguing idea but the idea didn’t really errr .... “come off” for me. Make your own minds up though.

A wild ride

Sometimes I hated it, sometimes I loved it- but when it finished I was glad I’d invested the time to go on this wild ride!!
It was slow to start a little, but then it got really tactile & relatable & weird and I kind of loved it.
Main downside was having the author narrate, she can write but she cannot read bless her - it was a gcse drama piece, like she’d never even heard the material before!

better to just read the book, instead of listen

this book had its good moments and beautiful passages and relatable moments (mommy issues, hello!), but overall a difficult listen.

most of it felt cringe, uncomfortable/too gross, wasn’t going anywhere. The reading performance is unfortunately lacking as well, read in such a monotonous tone that some of the sex scenes might’ve even been hot, had they been read differently.

So good

This really got me from beginning to end and made me think a lot about my relationship to food, my family and myself

Doesn’t deserve the mixed reviews

An honest and slightly perverse (in a good way) telling of the experience of being a woman - every nook and cranny. Couldn’t put it down, I thought about Rachael every moment of my day between reading.

Not for me

The author explored a couple of interesting topics. However, it read a bit like “Belinda Blinked” to me personally.

unusual and relatable

I really enjoyed this book. The main characters monologue is modern and relatable, it definitely deals with some intense themes but well written and with understanding.